‘Make your decision, I’ll back you up,’ William promised, walking back to the car. ‘But you are going to have to make it.’
A sour feeling turned in my belly as they drove away, Sanjit’s dad staring at me out the rear passenger window with terrified eyes, and it had nothing to do with the fact I’d only consumed a croissant, a chocolate chip cookie and a rocket fuel coconut coffee on an empty stomach. William was right.
Joe, Este Cox and I were all running out of time.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Making sure the front door to the cottage was securely locked, I took the only course of action I could think of and prepared to settle in for some very serious thinking in the best possible place for the task.
The bath.
I sank into the tub like sugar slipped through the foam on a cappuccino, my troubles dissolving away into the water. Daytime baths were better than night-time baths, this was my most fervently held belief in life. They were so much more decadent – who had time to soak in a giant tub full of hot water and bubbles in the middle of the day? Rich people, that’s who. People who gave guided tours of their homes on theArchitectural DigestYouTube channel always had a massive bath next to a window which meant they had too much money and no neighbours. There wasn’t a problem on earth that couldn’t be fixed with a soak. So many of my best decisions had been made here, the decision to give teaching a shot, finally realising sheet masks were just slimy tissues with holes cut in and the realisation I wasallowed to DNFInfinite Jestto name but three. Even the initial inspiration forButterfliescame to me during a bath.
The memory was so clear. CJ was out again, another literary event he couldn’t or wouldn’t take me to. It was late and he still wasn’t home when he said he would be when I lay back in the bath and closed my eyes to picture my life exactly how I wished it was. Instead of a teacher, I was a writer. Instead of living in the suburbs of London, I was on holiday in America, and instead of an emotionally and physically absent English arsehole, there was a gorgeous, manly cowboy in my bed, one who knew exactly what he was doing with every single part of me and would kill any other man who even dared to look in my direction. When CJ could only manage a five-minute fumble, Eric took his time. When CJ forgot my birthday, Eric celebrated Jenna’s with multiple orgasms. I gave Jenna all my problems then created Eric as the solution. The only problem was, I couldn’t make my fantasy true.
But what to do now? Decision number one, school. Abbey Hill was notoriously small ‘c’ conservative in a big ‘c’ Conservative town. Mrs Hedges, our headteacher, wasn’t exactly known for her liberal attitude, and I couldn’t see her, the board of governors or the parents’ association jumping up and down with joy to find out their new head of year five had been secretly churning out smut on the weekends. I’d been so proud when she offered me the job back in the spring but now I wasn’t so sure. I could handle a lot, more than was probably healthy, but writing, teaching and being head of year? It was a lot of responsibility, and you couldn’t half-arse teaching. Well, some people did but they wereterrible human beings and only made more work for the rest of us.
Writing had always been my dream but would I still love it as much if it was my full-time job? And what if my next book bombed, was I giving up a steady career on a whim? There was no way to know. That was the first decision to be made – was I prepared to sacrifice my teaching career to take a chance on writing?
Decision number two, what to do about Joe. I was still swinging wildly between wishing I’d never met him and wishing he’d bent me over and taken me in the karaoke room, deposit be damned. The man hadn’t even kissed me but what had happened in the stockroom had been more erotic than my entire relationship with CJ. Once, when I dared to suggest our love life could be a little spicier, I came home to find him standing naked in the middle of the living room, reading Henry Miller aloud. According to him, it was supposed to be sexy but the only thing it spurred in me was a desire to turn up the heating. He was evidentlyverycold.
Just the thought of Joe’s mouth on my neck, his fingers between my thighs, was enough to make me sink lower under the bubbles until the only things above water were my wide, dilated eyes, wallowing like a sex-starved hippo. My nipples puckered as my hand retraced Joe’s journey, and I closed my eyes, surrendering to the fantasy and very much hoping an imaginary go on Joe would be enough to clear my mind.
‘Sophie?’
There were only two people with keys to the cottage.
I was one of them. The man currently starring in my fantasy was the other.
‘Don’t come in the bathroom,’ I shrieked, pressingmy naked body against the side of the bathtub, water splashing everywhere. In my rush, I’d locked the front door but the door to the bathroom was only pushed to. All Joe had to do was take two steps to the left to see me in all my glory.
‘Why, what’s wrong?’ he asked, taking two steps to the left. ‘Oh.’
‘Oh,’ I agreed, still clinging to the side of the tub, chin hooked over the side. The bubbles were dissipating at a dangerous rate. ‘I thought you’d be gone ages. How did you escape Charlotte so quickly?’
He stayed where he was but, in a partial-gentleman move, kept his eyes on the ceiling.
‘Your mum texted and said she needed me back at the house.’
‘For what?’
‘Don’t know. Maybe she needs a big strong man to do something big and strong and manly.’
For now at least, I was definitely swinging towards wishing I’d never met him.
‘I’m expected in the conservatory in five minutes,’ he said, ‘or your mum is going to send her minions after me.’
‘She’ll have a stopwatch going,’ I replied, trying to move as little as possible. ‘But everything went OK with Charlotte and Este?’
He brushed imaginary fluff off his shoulders.
‘Your secret is safe. Turns out I’m a natural at this author business. If you hadn’t come on to me in the stockroom like that, I wouldn’t have been so mixed up in the first place. You were panicking over nothing.’
‘Me come on to you?’ The water swirled around my waist and I shifted my position, surging against the sidesof the bath. ‘You came on to me! All I did was sit in a chair. And you were the one panicking, not me.’
‘Recollections may differ,’ Joe said with airy dismissal. ‘Agree to disagree.’
‘I agree to nothing.’ I reached for a towel that was just beyond my fingertips, straining over the cold edge of the tub. ‘Can you close the door so I can get out please?’
